Abusive Republicans, Submissive Democrats

I don't normally read Michael Moore, but this article is just too interesting to pass up. Quoting an essay written by a friend, he compares the victorious Republicans to abusive husbands/boyfriends/partners and losing Democrats to submissive victims of domestic violence. "Why did they beat us?" she asks. "The answer is quite simple," she answers. "They beat us because they are abusers. We can call it hate. We can call it fear. We can say it is unfair. But we are looped into the cycle of violence, and we need to start calling the dominating side what they are: abusive. And we need to recognize that we are the victims of verbal, mental, and even, in the case of Iraq, physical violence." (The original writer of the essay is Mel Giles and she has worked for years as an advocate for victims of domestic violence. It would seem that she would be offended by anyone cheapening what her clients go through by comparing it to a political campaign, but apparently not.)

This comparison is laughable on so many levels. I'll just point out two. Changing the meaning of a word in the middle of a debate is called equivocation. It is a logical fallacy and renders your argument meaningless. Beating someone in a contest is not the same thing as beating someone with your fists. Winning an election is not abuse. Both sides say things that are abusive, but that is part of politics. The winner is not an abuser and the loser is not a submissive victim. Second, am I the only one who remembers all the years that Democrats controlled congress and the media? They weren't exactly interested in working with the Republicans and making sure they were not "victimizing" the poor submissive Republicans.

I am thrilled to see that leading Democrats have not learned anything from this election. It looks like they think that to get back in the game they must just lean harder to the left. Great! Politics will still continue to be entertaining and the Republicans will continue to gain ground. Now if we could only get them to understand what it means to be conservative! But that is a topic for another article.

If you would like to read the entire article by Michael Moore, just click on the title above. I linked to the discussion at Free Republic so that I would not be sending hits to Michael Moore's site, but if you want to go there, you will find that link in the FR article.

--Katie